I've tried
to watch this series more than once and have never got beyond three episodes...
Seeing an episode 'blind' turns out to be a better way to experience the programme,
as all of the alienating things about it (the unsatisfactory scenario,
poorly-realised characterization, etc) don't seem to matter so much when you
haven't got a whole series of the thing to get through. It’s closer to how the
1974 viewer would have experienced the programme, as a fleeting moment in the
flow of a Saturday evening's viewing.
The story is that familiar comedy staple, the regulars harbouring an escaped criminal. But the way that it's realised makes it look like (and also, to some extent, is performed like) a contemporaneous episode of New Scotland Yard, with a few neat directorial touches. We have to wait five minutes until we get a big close-up, at the dramatic moment when Bob Hoskins and John Thaw suggest that, "we could do another job". There's also an unsitcommy overhead show from the top of the staircase, looking down at Thaw and Pat Ashton, adding some tension when their house is raided as they harbour an escaped convict upstairs.
Although it’s got a Mike Hugg theme tune and a shot of a derelict building in the credits, there aren't so many signifiers that you're watching a Clement and La Frenais script. But odd flashes of quality writing do flare up occasionally, especially in the descriptions of off-screen characters and events, and the evocation of the wider world it's set in. Such as Stan's explanation to George of how the area has changed since he's been away:
The story is that familiar comedy staple, the regulars harbouring an escaped criminal. But the way that it's realised makes it look like (and also, to some extent, is performed like) a contemporaneous episode of New Scotland Yard, with a few neat directorial touches. We have to wait five minutes until we get a big close-up, at the dramatic moment when Bob Hoskins and John Thaw suggest that, "we could do another job". There's also an unsitcommy overhead show from the top of the staircase, looking down at Thaw and Pat Ashton, adding some tension when their house is raided as they harbour an escaped convict upstairs.
Although it’s got a Mike Hugg theme tune and a shot of a derelict building in the credits, there aren't so many signifiers that you're watching a Clement and La Frenais script. But odd flashes of quality writing do flare up occasionally, especially in the descriptions of off-screen characters and events, and the evocation of the wider world it's set in. Such as Stan's explanation to George of how the area has changed since he's been away:
Since you've been inside, there's been a social
transformation in Fulham. Yeah, your essential working class cottages is
fetching thirty thousand now. The yellow door brigade's moved in - ad men and
newscasters with trendy wives and kids with names like Emma and Simon.
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